Plant cultivation device

Abstract

Provided is a plant cultivation device that improves cultivation efficiency and usability. A plant cultivation device comprises: a rack unit provided with cultivation racks on which cultivation units accommodating plants are stored as culture medium units; and a conveying device which moves along a horizontal movement path defined by a guide rail, and performs transport of the culture medium units and loading/unloading of the culture medium units to/from the cultivation racks. Multiple cultivation racks constitute a cultivation rack row, in which the cultivation racks are arranged at multiple levels in an up-down direction. The rack unit comprises: a cultivation storage constituted of multiple cultivation rack rows; and a loading/unloading station having a stock rack row, in which the holding frames of cultivation units not accommodating plants are stored as empty units. The transport device performs loading/unloading of the holding frames to/from the stock rack row.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a national stage application under 35 U.S.C. 371 and claims the benefit of PCT Application No. PCT / JP2012 / 054158 having an international filing date of Feb. 21, 2012, which designated the United States, which PCT application claimed the benefit of Japanese Application No. 2011-077742 filed on Mar. 31, 2011, the disclosure of each of which are incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates to a plant cultivation device that includes a plurality of cultivation racks, which store cultivation units conveyed by a conveying device, the cultivation units being capable of accommodating plants to be cultivated.[0003]A plant cultivation device is known that includes a plurality of cultivation units that can accommodate plants to be cultivated, a cultivation storage provided with a plurality of cultivation racks that can store the cultivation units, and a conveying device that tran...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0026]Since the stock section is a stock rack row that includes the predetermined number or more of stock racks arranged in the vertical direction in a multistage fashion, the stock rack row reserves at least one of the stock racks storing the empty units, for each of all the cultivation rack rows in the cultivation storage. It is thus possible to improve the working efficiency of transporting the empty units and the culture medium units for each cultivation rack row, thereby improving the cultivation efficiency.

[0027]The stock rack row is arranged adjacent to the specific cultivation rack rows that are the cultivation rack rows, and are integrated with the specific cultivation rack rows. This reduces the size of the rack unit having the cultivation rack rows and the stock racks. Therefore, the plant cultivation device can be made compact.

[0028]The plant cultivation device of the invention according to claim 3 achieves the following advantage, in addition to the advantage of the invention according to claim 1 or 2.

[0029]The work station includes a loading section in which the culture medium units to be carried into the cultivation racks are placed by the conveying device stopping at the loading location on the moving pathway, and the stock section is positioned such that the conveying device can carry the empty units out of the stock section and into the loading section without moving on the moving pathway from the loading location. With this configuration, when an empty unit is carried out of the stock section by the conveying device in order to change the cultivation unit from the empty unit to the culture medium unit, the conveying device can carry the empty unit out of the stock section without moving on the moving pathway from the loading site. As a result, a time of transporting the empty unit in order to obtain the culture medium unit is shortened, so that the working efficiency of transporting the empty units is improved. Furthermore, the time of transporting the culture medium units, obtained from the empty units, to the cultivation rack is shortened, so that the usability of the plant cultivation device is improved.

[0030]The plant cultivation device of the invention according to claim 4 achieves the following advantage, in addition to the advantage of the invention according to any one of claims 1 to 3.

[0031]Each cultivation unit includes an accommodating member and a holding member. The accommodating member accommodates an object-to-be-stored, the object-to-be-stored has the plants planted therein, and the holding member removably holds the accommodating member and is handled by the conveying device. Increasing the strength of the holding member handled by the conveying device reliably facilitates the handling of the culture medium units with the conveying device. In addition, since the holding member acts as a reinforcing member that reinforces the accommodating member accommodating the plants, the weight of the accommodating member can be reduced. Therefore, when the plants are carried out of the plant cultivation device, only the accommodating member accommodating the plants can be extracted from the culture medium unit and transported. Consequently, it is possible to ease the work of transporting the accommodating member accommodating the plants when the plants are carried out of the plant cultivation device.

Problems solved by technology

However, when the culture medium unit of which the cultivation has been finished in the plant cultivation device is transported, as it is, to the exterior of the plant cultivation device in order to harvest the grown plant or when the cultivation unit with no plant planted due to the completion of cultivation in the plant cultivation device (referred to as an “empty unit”) is stored outside the plant cultivation device, troublesome work is involved to carry the culture medium unit or the empty unit to the exterior of the plant cultivation device or to carry it in the plant cultivation device.

When the culture medium unit prepared by loading a plant onto an empty unit is transported from the exterior of the plant cultivation device to the interior thereof, troublesome work is involved.

As a result, the storage efficiency is kept low for an extended time, which lowers the cultivation efficiency and degrades the usability of the plant cultivation device.

Moreover, since culture medium unit and empty unit are transported by different conveying devices, it may take a long time from loading a plant onto the cultivation unit to storing this cultivation unit on the cultivation rack.

In addition, the need to prepare the different conveying devices can increase the costs of the plant cultivation device.

On the other hand, storing empty units on the cultivation rack decreases the storage efficiency and involves troublesome work to carry empty units out of the cultivation rack in order to put plants in them.

This lowers the cultivation efficiency.

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